He should be, at least to people who want to make a career taking payola from organic food corporations. From 2004-2012, though he is an economist, he was styled as Chief Scientist for The Organic Center, now part of the Organic Trade Association, which is obviously a trade group for organic corporations. Then he moved to Washington State University, joining the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources with funding from substantial checks courtesy of United Natural Foods, Whole Foods, Organic Valley/CROPP, Stonyfield, and the Clif Bar Family Foundation.
Writing at Genetic Literacy Project, Julie Kelly details how Washington Post bought into the organic food narrative, ignoring the well-known fact that Benbrook is corporate-funded when writing about the Washington state GMO warning label initiative, "Charles Benbrook, a Washington State University agricultural researcher" and never mentioning his industry ties.
This is really hypocritical, since lobbying groups like US Right To Know and Center for Media and Democracy insist any article by American Council on Science and Health should have an "industry-funded" disclaimer because only 99.99% of our donors are individuals. Benbrook, with 100 percent funding from corporations, is criticized by SourceWatch, CMD's prized venue in its "denier for hire" war chest against science, exactly zero times for his corporate ties. No criticism on their PRWatch site either, though he was clearly engaged in corporate PR.
When Benbrook paid to publish a questionable paper stating organic milk was healthier than normal milk, his publicity campaign for it was orchestrated by Organic Valley, the leading source of organic milk in the country. They even scheduled his media appearances around a surgery and his vacation schedule.
No conflict of interest disclaimer there and the New York Times never engaged in any critical thinking. They interviewed him and handed out the headline "More Helpful Fatty Acids Found in Organic Milk" despite the fact that there is nothing close to a science consensus about that.
Tom Philpott at Mother Jones immediately rewrote the same story, but that's Mother Jones. The New York Times brings actual legitimacy for some of the mainstream public so the spin was more effective.
Most profound is Kelly showing that organic corporations are not different than anyone else paying for performance - they paid for a deliverable and they expect to get it.
Read the rest: FOIA: Organic industry, Chuck Benbrook orchestrated anti-GMO “independent” research, marketing by Julie Kelly, Genetic Literacy Project
Comments